Eventually we got the walls all done to my specs, the tile floor installed, and everything painted inside and out. Unfortunately some of the paint was "stolen by bandits at the intersection" according to my "friend" who charged me "only" 1000 cordobas for the "transportation" of the paint. Fortunately, I had ordered extra. I had another embarassing lesson in this stage of the construction also. There was one well-respected carpenter with one well-respected tile-layer in a nearby town. So I went to the well-respected carpenter's house and asked if he could have the well-respected tile-layer his brother come to my house to quote the job of laying the tile. So a man came, and we agreed on a price that I knew was reasonable for a talented man. Then the first day on the job, I stupidly assumed that I didn't have to watch every last motion. When I came back after two hours, he had layed about twenty expensive tiles already, all flush right against one wall, without any thought whatsoever about the way this particular room (like every room in the world) is slightly off. It was obviously amateur work. But this was supposed to be the well-respected tile laying brother of the well-respected carpenter. Well, I just calmly demonstrated and explained and supervised for the rest of the job, and by the end of it he was almost ready to work unsupervised. Later I found out what had happened. This was indeed the brother of the well-respected carpenter, but the well-respected-tile-laying brother was already busy, so they had sent an incompetent brother to quote the job. Slick. Business in Nicaragua.